America's best performing but most undervalued restaurateur came to Salt Lake City Thursday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the opening of his Utah eatery: Benihana of Tokyo in Arrow Press Square.
But don't feel too sorry for Rocky Aoki, founder, chairman and CEO of the Benihana chain of restaurants. His salary last year of $360,000 is a lot more than most of us will earn well into the next millennium.Still, according to this month's issue of Restaurant Business magazine, Aoki should have been paid $707,000 for his services, nearly twice as much as he actually collected. The publication cited the HVS Pay-for-Performance Index, which quantifies a CEO's value to the company through a variety of measures and then compares it to his industry peers.
The discrepancy makes Aoki the most undervalued food-service executive in the nation . . . and the one with the most ammunition for a contract renegotiation at the next Benihana board meeting.
But if he can't scrape by on his salary, Aoki could always sell some of his Benihana shares - he still owns more than half of the company - although that would mean losing his controlling interest, something he says he can't imagine doing.
There are currently 63 Beni-hanas in the United States and a total of 93 worldwide. The U.S. franchise alone will log $100 million in sales this year. (The Salt Lake Benihana was number 10 in the chain launched 30 years ago. Aoki says he is thinking of opening another one somewhere in Utah.)
Despite being underpaid, Aoki may be the happiest millionaire in America. He is amused by just about everything, especially himself. Ask him about his two ex-wives and ex-girlfriend - the mothers of his seven children - and he laughs out loud at the thought of how much money those failed relationships have cost him.
"When you're in love you don't want to make a woman sign a pre-nuptial agreement," he chuckles.
Would this eligible bachelor give romance another try? Absolutely, he says, "If I find the right girl. I thought I had the right one a few times before, but as soon as we got married they became the wrong girl."
On the other hand, he doesn't let family interfere with business. Only one of his children, a son, works for him and he almost got fired when the Hawaii Benihana started losing money after he took it over.
"He begged me to give him two more months," says Aoki. Happily, Dad gave his son that extra time and he turned things around. The Hawaii Benihana is now one of the most profitable in the chain and the son has moved up in the company. He's currently opening a new Benihana in Dubai.
Aoki can even find humor in the incredible array of serious injuries that he has acquired in pursuit of adventure and excitement.
An avid offshore power boat racer, Aoki has had three major accidents, including a flip-over at 100 mph in San Francisco Bay that left him comatose for three days with seven broken bones and had him out of commission for a year.
His love of ballooning also nearly got him killed. His $1.3 million helium-filled balloon, the Double Eagle V, made it across the Pacific Ocean from Tokyo to California before it crashed, again sending Aoki to the hospital unconscious.
He can even smile at his business failures, including an aborted hotel/casino project in Atlantic City and a frozen food company. Both of those ventures cost him millions, he says, and Benihana's stock plunged to $1 per share. It's now trading on NASDAQ around $13.
But Aoki allows that he is mellowing a bit with age. He remains an avid hot-air balloonist but has more or less given up boat and auto racing. Instead, he has moved into good works, forming the Rocky Aoki Foundation, which he uses to pursue his goal of "One Planet - One People."
He vows he'll never retire, noting that several executive friends in Japan died within weeks of collecting their gold watches.
"Now by job is my hobby and my hobby is my job," he says.